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Cloudflare One vs OpenVPN Access Server comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

Cloudflare One
Ranking in ZTNA
4th
Average Rating
8.6
Reviews Sentiment
6.5
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Email Security (20th), Secure Web Gateways (SWG) (12th), Data Loss Prevention (DLP) (23rd), Cloud Access Security Brokers (CASB) (12th), Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) Protection (8th), Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (13th), Access Management (12th), Bot Management (3rd), ZTNA as a Service (8th), Secure Access Service Edge (SASE) (9th), Remote Browser Isolation (RBI) (2nd)
OpenVPN Access Server
Ranking in ZTNA
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
71
Ranking in other categories
Enterprise Infrastructure VPN (1st)
 

Mindshare comparison

As of August 2026, in the ZTNA category, the mindshare of Cloudflare One is 9.9%, down from 12.3% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of OpenVPN Access Server is 3.5%, down from 4.1% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
ZTNA Mindshare Distribution
ProductMindshare (%)
Cloudflare One9.9%
OpenVPN Access Server3.5%
Other86.6%
ZTNA
 

Featured Reviews

CV
Network Architect at IP Dimension
Cloud security has improved remote access and has reduced costs for smaller client sites
I have used Cloudflare One's Identity-Aware Proxy, and it is quite straightforward from what I have seen so far. The app registration on the Azure side integrates fully into Cloudflare, and I am very satisfied with that part because it is easy to set up. The integration of Cloudflare One's Secure Web Gateway and Zero Trust Network Access works without any issues. That part is pretty automatic, and if you complete the rest of the setup, it comes together by itself with no issues from my side. What makes it nice is that we can actually start replacing on-site firewalls at this stage for the smaller clients because it does not matter if they go to a coffee shop or work from home; they are still secured by the same connection. The hops get shorter and you get better latency. We have done testing to see if it is better. One thing that we did notice with our proof of concept with our current client is that they have people connecting from the UK. When they used their previous VPN solution, uploading CAD drawings and other files to the server took a long time. They mentioned that it is much quicker on Cloudflare One's solution. I definitely believe that is part of the improved performance, and I am satisfied with that as well. What is nice about Cloudflare One is that it makes the setup easier and also easier to train technicians to maintain it. Compared to legacy systems, we do not need to get fancy firewalls in place that are costly. That is definitely also a cost-saver with Cloudflare One.
AS
Network operation center engineer at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Secure remote access has protected critical data and now simplifies role-based user management
An area for improvement is the pricing model. The concurrent user licenses get expensive pretty quickly as your organization grows, so more flexible pricing options would be a huge plus. Another area is configurational disconnect. While the admin web UI handles about 90% of what you need, the moment you have to do deep, advanced routing customization, you still have to drop back to the command line interface to make those changes. It would be great to see those deeper configurations completely integrated into the web portal. Lastly, it would be awesome to see native support for newer, lighter protocols through WireGuard built straight into the platform alongside standard OpenVPN for better performance efficiency.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"The simplicity of the solution is its valuable features as almost no effort was needed to learn the configurations. It is also one of the cheapest firewalls available in this category."
"It's the endpoint exposition. We don't need to expose our VPN server to the internet and need a zero-test solution. I can apply some conditional access to the endpoint that's connecting to our network to check their security policies or the security condition of their workstation. Once the workstation is trying to connect to my internal network, then I would like to check the discrete condition of these endpoints that are trying to access my internal network. We created some conditional access. We have CrowdStrike, to check if the CrowdStrike is installed, to check if it's updated, and to check for Windows updates. We created some conditional policies to check it."
"Cloudflare One has assisted in securing my remote workforce through a SASE solution with Cloudflare One and the Workers part, although I am not currently using the Workers component."
"It's a perfect solution from my perspective; it's easy to understand and easy to configure."
"Cloudflare Access is a stable solution."
"The solution has different options that can be used to differentiate DDoS attacks."
"Cloudflare DDoS mitigates DDoS attacks."
"The blocking feature is very good."
"The core VPN functionality is reliable and relatively easy to administer once it is deployed."
"The most valuable features of OpenVPN are its ease of use, client familiarity, end-user familiarity, operating system integration, and price points."
"I would recommend this solution to other people."
"Provides privacy and cryptography for my network communication."
"The product has strong encryption and scalability features. It provides security for private network connections."
"The initial setup was easy."
"OpenVPN Access Server has positively impacted my organization by supporting remote work and improving security since users must authenticate through the VPN first before accessing services such as RDP and SSH, which reduces our attack surface."
"Provided the easiest UX for our end-users and had the greatest interoperability with all the operating systems we used, including but not limited to: iOS, Android, OS X, Windows, and Linux."
 

Cons

"For the topic of improvement, providing some training material is one of my suggestions."
"The onboarding process can be improved a little bit."
"Feedback could be enhanced."
"They don't have a person to provide support for customers using the solution under their free plan."
"The response time for support must be reduced."
"Feedback could be enhanced. While I work efficiently with Clover as a partner in Mexico City, sometimes the information and requests are easier to manage with more concrete solutions."
"When there are any dynamic changes in complex applications, the tool takes a lot of time, making its analytics-related area a major matter of concern where improvements are needed."
"Cloudflare One is not very powerful, but for what we require, it is basic and sufficient."
"The connections could be faster and more stable."
"The plan for OpenVPN Access Server could be improved. When adding new people, better plans for startups would be beneficial."
"They may have this already, but it would be nice to be able to get more notifications if a site drops unexpectedly."
"My impression of the connection speed using OpenVPN Access Server is that, compared to other VPN solutions, OpenVPN Access Server is a little bit slow, but it is very safe and always connects."
"If someone's key is not working, or if we had to remove someone's permission from it, or maybe an employee left the company and we had to take their key out, that seemed a little bit more complicated than it had to be."
"I'd like the solution to have more access points and more speed."
"Better GUI. Also, we switched more to Cisco AnyConnect due to the Win 10 stability issues."
"This solution should improve the connection speed and the user interface. The stability of this solution should be improved as well."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The pricing of the solution is cheap. The licensing cost is also very low. I rate the cost and pricing a three out of ten."
"The prices are slightly expensive."
"The solution's pricing lacks transparency."
"The price tag is no longer $200,000, but rather $300,000 to $400,000. It's twice."
"My company has to make yearly payments towards the licensing costs attached to the solution. There are no hidden charges apart from the licensing costs of the solution."
"The pricing is somewhere in the middle. I would rate the pricing a seven out of ten."
"The solution is not that expensive."
"Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform's pricing is good."
"I would say the product's pricing is a good value. I would recommend to other companies to implement it. I've seen other software, in tandem with the service, to be very expensive."
"It is free, you buy support."
"The solution is free of cost."
"The product's pricing is good value, definitely. It is one of the best features, I would say. Evaluate the product before seeing which type of licensing is good for you. I think there is a good evaluation method available for OpenVPN, so you can just evaluate if it meets your needs. Then go forward with the right licensing policy."
"At one point I had to purchase addition connection licenses. I was very pleased with the pricing and licensing; so much easier than navigating the confusing jungle of Microsoft and Cisco licensing and pricing. That alone made the product a delight to manage."
"The price point is fantastic since it is free."
"Open VPN Access Server is open-source and free of charge."
"Begin with the community version and upgrade to paid one if the need arises."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Construction Company
18%
Comms Service Provider
11%
Outsourcing Company
8%
Financial Services Firm
8%
Computer Software Company
12%
Comms Service Provider
12%
Financial Services Firm
8%
University
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business10
Midsize Enterprise1
Large Enterprise12
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business44
Midsize Enterprise14
Large Enterprise25
 

Questions from the Community

What needs improvement with Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
In my opinion, Cloudflare One can be improved mainly through compatibility, as the integration should be much simpler because it is currently too closed and too proprietary. Regarding additional fe...
What is your primary use case for Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform?
Cloudflare One's primary use case for my organization is to protect servers and to provide remote access with the VPN, strong authentication, and DDoS protection. The integration of Secure Web Gate...
How does Fortinet FortiClient compare with Open VPN Access Server?
Fortinet FortiClient is a feature-rich solution that is easy to use and deploy without sacrificing safety and security. It has a very fast connection rate and has a built-in VPN. With this solution...
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for OpenVPN Access Server?
In terms of specific outcomes or metrics with OpenVPN Access Server, we have saved time because otherwise, we need to purchase other software and their software takes a great deal of time in terms ...
What needs improvement with OpenVPN Access Server?
OpenVPN Access Server can be improved by addressing the issue we faced with a single VPN server since it does not allow the creation of replicas without a load balancer, which we found to be an ava...
 

Also Known As

Cloudflare Area 1 Email Security, Cloudflare Bot Management, Cloudflare Gateway, Cloudflare Zero Trust Platform, Cloudflare DDoS, Cloudflare SASE & SSE Platform
OpenVPN
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

23andMe
Verizon, Amazon, Disney, HP, Microsoft, IBM, Samsung
Find out what your peers are saying about Cloudflare One vs. OpenVPN Access Server and other solutions. Updated: July 2026.
909,725 professionals have used our research since 2012.